LAHORE, Sept 4: The Punjab government has further dropped official wheat release price to Rs545 per 40kg, costing the provincial exchequer an additional Rs1.87 million a day, but still failing to ease flour supply situation.

Though the accountancy firm, which was supposed to calculate grinding charges, has yet to come up with any final assessment, the provincial government has decided to provide an ad hoc relief of Rs15 per 40Kg to the millers.It does not exclude the chances of the release price dropping further with the CA firm coming up with its recommendations, to which the Punjab government has already committed itself.

“The chief minister has sent a very wrong message to the flour market and millers by distancing himself from, and even sacking, the former food secretary, who, along with some other civil servants and the CM’s Secretariat, finalised the previous release price and then got 350 mills onboard for grinding flour,” says a flour trader from the city. By squarely, and wrongly, blaming the secretary of every wrong in the market, the chief minister only confessed his naivety; he was either too weak to rope in the secretary and execute his decision or was not in know of the situation about flour supply in the province, he adds.

“No secretary could make the policy in administrative vacuum, especially in a political setup. With millers declaring victory in his sacking, they would only get emboldened. One proof of the new-found confidence is decrease in wheat release price, which, in all probability, will go further down and put pressure on flour supply market,” he said.

Meanwhile, flour supply crisis stubbornly persisted in Lahore on Thursday as the scared bureaucracy refused to release flour to normal distribution channels of dealers and retailers and failed to establish parallel distribution network.

With unceremonious exit of former secretary, who has been pivotal in all decision-making, the entire distribution mechanism is in a limbo. On Thursday, all mills were told to sell the flour only within the “town boundaries” of their location.

Within the town jurisdiction, the town municipal officer (TMO), who obviously has no previous experience of managing such crisis, has been put in charge of the situation. With supply pipelines already dried up, the mounting pressure for flour seems to have unnerved everyone in the trade.

Hundreds of people thronged a city mill in the morning for “gate sale,” which the district government had not allowed. Ultimately, the mill’s management ended up ringing up district coordination officer and calling local police. Ultimately, the DCO allowed the gate sale, which the rest of town management refused to acknowledge as “official sale” because it could not be verified with any measure of certainty.

“Problem with the current distribution mechanism is that it runs through the government officials, who have no experience in marketing, least of flour,” says a miller from Lahore. “It is a total mess right now because the established mechanism has been by-passed for the fear of hoarding and the parallel one does not exist. The district government, which is supposed to be in charge of distribution, has virtually disappeared along with the Nazim. The Food Department has refused to act beyond the mills’ gate for the fear CM’s administrative retribution. What is left is total chaos,” he insisted.

“The only option left with the government is to flood the market for next few days, and let at least 50 per cent of flour go through normal supply mechanism of dealers and retailers,” says one of the office-bearers of Lahore Karyana (retailers) Merchants.

“The appeasement of industrialists, especially in a writ-less market of Pakistan, has never paid anybody, and it would not work in Punjab either. During the last two days, the situation has only worsened and it was not expected to improve in the next few days either. The only thing that would happen is release price would drop further and more benefits would go to millers and they would continue deflecting the blame on marketing mechanism,” he said.